Holy Smoke! More efficient electric motors with no rare earth minerals

[darthgently]

 

This goes well beyond engineering and punches deep into geopolitics and global econ.  True back swan event if true, especially combined with recent news of 4x power density increase of prototype lithium battery (not Tesla, don't have at fingertips). 

I'm personally not thrilled on coerced/mandated switch to electric cars given our grid can't really handle the load and most juice is non-green anyway, but the implications of this tech goes well beyond cars

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by darthgently

[Shpaget]

Induction motors regularly hit 90% efficiency (and more in industrial applications). There just is not much room for anything revolutionary.

[Nuke]

well this is truely revolitonary.

 

i mean it does spin.

[darthgently]

56 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Induction motors regularly hit 90% efficiency (and more in industrial applications). There just is not much room for anything revolutionary.

Permanent magnet motors do better, at least for variable load, iirc.  Switched reluctance with neural net control has a lot of promise.  Aren't highly efficient induction motors purpose designed for a quite narrow rpm/freq and load range?  A variable frequency power source to get a variable rpm from an induction motor has its own loss that stack on the motor's loss also.  

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I'm not seeing any reports of this on what I'd consider reliable sources.

 

Got a link to something that doesn't reek of SEA clickbait?

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm not seeing any reports of this on what I'd consider reliable sources.

 

Got a link to something that doesn't reek of SEA clickbait?

What is SEA?  The YouTube channel has been a reliable source of insider Tesla news in the past

 

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm not seeing any reports of this on what I'd consider reliable sources.

 

Got a link to something that doesn't reek of SEA clickbait?

Anyway, the main point is not the electrical efficiency, but the lack of dependency on rare earth minerals for the permanent magnets.  Most of these minerals come from the PRC. This news was announced at the 2024 Investor Day event

https://insideevs.com/news/655233/tesla-next-gen-eletric-motors-no-rare-earth-elements/

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by darthgently

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

8 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Anyway, the main point is not the electrical efficiency, but the lack of dependency on rare earth minerals for the permanent magnets.  Most of these minerals come from the PRC. This news was announced at the 2024 Investor Day event

https://insideevs.com/news/655233/tesla-next-gen-eletric-motors-no-rare-earth-elements/

 

I have a low threshold for tolerance of YouTube - consequently I tend to go find industry articles where possible. 

SEA (Southeast Asia) clickbait is 'newsy sounding' articles by questionable sources 

[darthgently]

6 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I have a low threshold for tolerance of YouTube - consequently I tend to go find industry articles where possible. 

SEA (Southeast Asia) clickbait is 'newsy sounding' articles by questionable sources 

I think the 2025 Investor Day event is fairly reliable.  I found the link by searching "Tesla hairpin rare earth".  I think the video also stated that source, iirc

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

14 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Tesla hairpin rare earth

That did the trick:

Tesla Comments Spur Plunge in China Rare-Earth Miner Shares - Bloomberg

[darthgently]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

That did the trick:

Tesla Comments Spur Plunge in China Rare-Earth Miner Shares - Bloomberg

Yeah, I'm lagging the news quite a bit in this, but it was news to me and the global implications hit me upside the head, lol

Edited March 7, 2023 by darthgently

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

42 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Anyway, the main point is not the electrical efficiency, but the lack of dependency on rare earth minerals for the permanent magnets.  Most of these minerals come from the PRC. This news was announced at the 2024 Investor Day event

https://insideevs.com/news/655233/tesla-next-gen-eletric-motors-no-rare-earth-elements/

 

So reading into this... Musk is pushing back on China.  They've been trying to treat him like they do other business leaders (shut up, play ball) and he's like; okay, you're just another engineering problem to solve.

 

[darthgently]

1 minute ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So reading into this... Musk is pushing back on China.  They've been trying to treat him like they do other business leaders (shut up, play ball) and he's like; okay, you're just another engineering problem to solve.

 

Maybe.  He is known for reducing the number of parts, removing materials etc from manufacturing to bring down costs

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

5 minutes ago, darthgently said:

Maybe.  He is known for reducing the number of parts, removing materials etc from manufacturing to bring down costs

True.  But when a country goes to great lengths to corner the supply of rare materials for strategic reasons... it makes sense to see if you can do without.

[darthgently]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

True.  But when a country goes to great lengths to corner the supply of rare materials for strategic reasons... it makes sense to see if you can do without.

Agreed.  After we abandoned the rare earth riches of Afghanistan to their big neighbor this is very good news.

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by darthgently

[AckSed]

I briefly thought this was about the proliferation of iron nitride magnets and became excited.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

49 minutes ago, AckSed said:

I briefly thought this was about the proliferation of iron nitride magnets and became excited.

Good read, thanks! 

[mikegarrison]

20 hours ago, darthgently said:

He is known for reducing the number of parts, removing materials etc from manufacturing to bring down costs

Um ... just here to tell you that Musk did not invent engineering. Reducing part counts and lowering costs is what engineers have been doing since at least the Roman Empire.

Also, "rare earth" elements are not rare. It's just that they are not concentrated. So unless you find a really unusual concentration of them all in one place, the main thing that is involved in producing them is digging a *lot* of material and processing it with a *lot* of byproduct.

China managed to capture most of the world's rare earth production simply by being willing to do it on a scale that made it less expensive. (And also by not really worrying too much about the environmental costs of mining so much material in order to produce so little output.) But it's not like China has some sort of inherent and unassailable lock on the production of rare earth materials.

Edited March 8, 2023 by mikegarrison

[StrandedonEarth]

Can’t REEs be extracted from tailings  and waste products of other mines?

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

the main thing that is involved in producing them is digging a *lot* of material and processing it with a *lot* of byproduct.

 

[Jacke]

To put it bluntly, if it's Musk, doubt everything.  Everything.

[mikegarrison]

14 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Can’t REEs be extracted from tailings  and waste products of other mines?

I think that they require relatively concentrated ore. It's not like you find nuggets of neodymium or whatever, but some sites have (relatively) higher concentrations than others. So while there is no such thing as a "vein" of REEs, I don't think you can expect a commercially successful yield from processing any random pile of dirt.

But I'm not a geologist or mining engineer, so maybe my understanding of this is wrong.

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Um ... just here to tell you that Musk did not invent engineering. Reducing part counts and lowering costs is what engineers have been doing since at least the Roman Empire.

Um, just a reply to affirm that I've been aware of this fact for over half a century at least. 

The point is that Musk makes a point of emphasizing part reduction in nearly every interview and SpaceX and Tesla are clearly more driven to operate this way than many others (most other self driving vehicles insist on lidar, most other launch providers throw lots of extra parts in the ocean instead of reusing them, for example etc).  Here the rare earth elements are reduced.

5 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Also, "rare earth" elements are not rare. It's just that they are not concentrated.

Not sure what your point is.  It certainly isn't addressing a point I was making.   Rare earth elements may not be "rare" but they are most certainly mostly concentrated in the control of one nation state.  That supply chain infrastructure didn't appear easily or by magic.  So not relying on REEs as much has implications.  It has geopolitical implications.  Control over Afghani REEs is no longer a game changer for one

Edited March 9, 2023 by darthgently